The story
Founded by Mario Laserna Pinzón on Nov 16, 1948.1
Historical context
In 1930, the Colombian presidential elections resulted in the appointment of Liberal party candidate Enrique Olaya Herrera to an office that had been, since 1880, under Conservative control. The latter years of this Conservative Republic were punctuated by events such as the Banana massacre, which may have been a contributing factor to the Colombian Conservative Party's loss of the presidency.
During this new period of Liberal government, known as the Liberal Republic, the administrations of Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934-1938 and 1942–1946) implemented changes intended to modernize the country. Restructuring of higher education, in particular of the National University of Colombia in 1935, agrarian reform in 1936, and general promotion of industrialization resulted in rapid economic changes and growth. According to some estimates, around 50% of existing Colombian corporations in 1945 were founded between 1940 and 1945, promoting the accumulation of wealth and the creation of a new middle class with political interests and international aspirations.
However, in order to continue industrial development, there was an urgent need for skilled labor, reflected in the speech given by the Colombian Minister of Education to the Congress of Colombia in 1946:
We have a lack of engineers, architects, physicians, dentists, agronomists, veterinarians, chemists and even lawyers (...) in sufficient quantities to attend to the country's needs, and the only solution lies in the enlargement of the universities... in the creation of a university for the country, that responds to what the country calls for.
These words echo the suggestions made around 35 years earlier by liberal leader Rafael Uribe Uribe regarding the need for the modernization of the educational system. These intellectual currents were coherent with previous educational developments such as the foundation of the Gimnasio Moderno in 1914. Amid the political tension and violence caused by the loss of liberal power in the 1946 elections, social unrest, and industrial growth, leftist liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated on April 9, 1948, in an event that shook the country and was taken by the founders as "the best argument for the foundation of the university".
Foundation and early years (1949-1955)
In November 1948, around a year after arriving back in Colombia from Columbia University, accompanied by intellectuals from the elites of both traditional parties, Mario Laserna Pinzón founded the Universidad de los Andes as the first nonsectarian and non-politically affiliated university in Colombia. The main goals with the establishment of the university were to provide Colombia with professionals whose technical knowledge benefited the development of the country, which made it necessary for them to study abroad and bring this knowledge back; and who would become leaders of their nation in the post-war world, facilitated by founders, faculty, and staff occupying important posts in government and institutions. In practice, Uniandes would be modeled after the American university, and its students would receive not only technical but also liberal education, in accordance to the need for the development of the human intellect for a practical, altruistic purpose, as per the Declaration of the Principles of the Founders.
Classes started on 29 March, 1949, with only 80 students taking courses from a small set of faculties and schools. Of note was the Colegio de Estudios Superiores, or college, which was modeled on the American university college and had the responsibilities of offering classes on Humanities, Spanish, English, Contemporary Civilization, and Colombian Geography & History. Classes belonging to distinct curricula, but not specific to each, such as mathematics for Engineering and Architecture students, were also the responsibility of the college. By the second academic year, in 1950, there were around 400 applications for 110 places of study in Uniandes.
Increasing political violence in Colombia during the 1950s did not change the university's stance towards political neutrality, and the inclusion of government representatives in the Board, as well as rectors and administrative staff belonging to both Conservative and Liberal parties, ensured good relations with conservative, military, and liberal Colombian administrations.
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Starting in 1950, the three/two program was established at first with the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Through it, Uniandes students were able to course 5 semesters, or three years, at home, and then transfer to an American university to complete their undergraduate program. Participating universities included Pittsburgh, MIT, Vanderbilt, and Texas, among others. The funds for tuition expenses in the United States were initially provided by Colombian industries such as Avianca and Paz del Río Steelworks; American philanthropic institutions (the Rockefeller Foundation); and Colombian, Canadian, and American private individuals. To manage these assets, the university hired ICETEX, a government agency established by University founder and then-Minister of Education Gabriel Betancourt, whose objective was to promote Colombian students abroad through grants and scholarships.
Throughout the early 1950s, diverse experiments were carried out by the University as per its aspirations to fulfill the needs of its country and become an internationally recognized institution. Some of them failed, such as the Faculty of Aeronautic Sciences, due to low student interest; the Institute for Conservation of Natural Resources, which granted non-professional degrees on its subject matter; and the Preparatory Lyceum of Pereira, intended to equip high school students of this city with the necessary tools to thrive in Uniandes. Important successes were attained by the Cultural Extension Section: the organization of academic conferences whose speakers included the likes of John von Neumann, Arnold J. Toynbee, Hideki Yukawa, Thornton Wilder, and others. The subjects and structure of these conferences would give way to the establishment of the Female Section of the university in 1953, though its programs of study did not confer professional degrees. Active recruitment of foreign professors from abroad and from other Colombian educational institutions, such as the National University, the Normal Superior School, and the Gimnasio Moderno, was also an important strategy for the administrative staff in the initial years of the University of the Andes.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of the Andes (Colombia), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5